


Downstep

by zombiekittiez



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Dark!Juggie, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Spoilers for episode 13, Spoilers for finale, Stream of Consciousness, bughead - Freeform, dark!betty, experimental formatting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 22:21:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10886091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiekittiez/pseuds/zombiekittiez
Summary: She's whispering his nameJug, Juggieand he is saying he loves her will always love her will kill and fight and destroy for her will move mountains will burn cities to the ground for her, always alwaysalways.





	Downstep

**Author's Note:**

> "I have this fantasy of us as a power couple." - Betty Cooper, Riverdale s1e01
> 
> Be warned, extremely unusual formatting and spoilers up the wazoo.

Betty stands over the sink and stares and stares and stares at the girl in the mirror, at the pink and the lace and white blouse _that blouse had been off on the floor and his hands had been_ but no it hadn't happened, spell broken, times changed and the leather jacket had been cold cold cold too cold against her bare, warm skin. 

_Just take me home,_ she'd said and he did. He took the jacket off, too, but he left it hanging in the closet like a precious thing, one of the few precious things that he owns and it occurs to her, as he drives, face pale but set, calm but cool, that _she is going to lose him-_ he is going to disappear into the system, into a shitty school where he can run rings around the teachers, where his sarcastic charm, his hat, his smoldering eyes will command attention because they recognize that he is _genuine, the real deal, a second generation Serpent_ and she will be pink, preppy Betty Cooper, soft and sad and _boring._

She starts small. 

He is closed off the next time they see each other, his hat on firmly, his heavy coat still buttoned even though the booth at Pop's is warm. He could not be more plain that he is not comfortable, with this girl he loves madly, the only one besides his father, ( _the Serpents_ ) that really truly gives a damn about him and he wants her to see _I'm a survivor this is surviving_ but it's not. He knows he's not doing this for his father, he's doing this for himself, to see if he's good at it. He's turning out to be good at it. 

Betty pretends that she doesn't see the tension, the way this denim coat doesn't quite sit right, as though he's used to wearing a different sort of skin outside now. She knows all about that. Betty just sits in the booth across from him _not next to him too much_ and slips off her coat. The camisole is deep orange, it looks wonderful against her golden soft American girl doll skin, her shoulders are bare, it dips low enough for the hint of a bra. 

“Aren't- aren't you cold?” Jughead asks after a minute, his eyes never leaving the curve of a gilded shoulder. Her bra is black and lacy; it does not blend with the top at all and he wonders is this the thing that _Chuck-_

“Not at all,” Betty smiles and sips her milkshake. 

She stands outside the school when the bell rings, leaned against his ( _FP's_ ) truck ( _just till I get out take care of it, son you always take such good care of things_ ). Her hair is up in a pert ponytail and her coat is very long. She might not look 100% Southside ( _maybe more like a solid 3?_ ) but they _know_ Jughead now, new kid from Riverdale High but not snobbish at all, nice guy, real sharp and cutting but not in that fucked up way. He walks to the parking lot with a couple of kids- boys. A girl. She looks at Jughead like Betty used to look at Jughead, like she's half in love with him already but the look Jughead gives Betty- boyish, embarrassed pleasure, a flush along the back of his neck, lets her know she's still winning in this and this is _worth playing to the end._

“ _Betty,_ ” he says like it's the best thing he's said all day, all loosened weights and easy exhales.

“Betty Cooper, wrote that stuff about the Serpents?” one of the boys says, interested, looking her up and down. She turns her cherry vanilla smile his way, fairly beams with it and Jughead takes her by the arm and opens the door to the truck and helps her in in a way that looks sweet but feels a little worried.

“What are you _doing_ here?” he asks, not mad, but surprised and doubly so when she looks up at him, eyes lidded. 

“I just wanted to stop by,” she says, her voice a little throaty- like the night of the jubilee, like walking in the snow. 

“It's a long way, Betts,” Jughead says, getting in the driver's seat. “And it's a... little rough out here.” 

“I'm not worried,” Betty says, shaking her hair loose as he drives. 

“Where did you want to go?” Jughead asks, keeping his eyes straight ahead. 

“Mm,” Betty considers, taking the time to unbutton her coat and fan it open, the heat from the radiator on full blast. She notices that he is not wearing the jacket, not to school, not yet, and figures that's a score in her favor, a little more time to move things along. His t-shirt is a little tight; the red checked jacket over it is open. She would like to look more but she is waiting, face turned away to the passenger side window. It doesn't take long. She knows the exact moment that he looks over because he nearly runs a red light. 

“Stop, Juggie,” She says, staring at the road. 

“S-sorry,” he snaps his eyes away from her, remembering the awkward tension. 

“ _The truck,_ ” she says emphatically and he slams on the brakes- another car screams by, horn blazing. 

It isn't like the clothes are _special_ \- she's not dressed like Cheryl Blossom or anything, it's just that her shoulders are bare in the silky camisole and the skirt is black and just short and tight enough to maybe not pass dress code. On anyone else it might warrant a glance, on a nice body, a second look. On Betty Cooper it is practically pornographic. The curve of her knee is on display; when she shifts there is a strip of thigh, the smooth juncture of her arm meeting torso. Collarbones. 

“Do you have time? You can come over for a bit, my parents are working an event and Polly's with Cheryl.”

“Yeah,” he says, breath hitching. “I have time.”

~~

They make it up to her room and he's looking at her a little sideways, her long legs, her hair a little messy but her smile is all bright Betty, happy to see him and he thinks about saying it _I love you Betty Cooper_ but the words won't rise because he'd said them the one time, the last time and he would have done anything for her but now he knows what it's like to have to choose _loyalty and loyalty and loyalty_ and really, probably, he knows she's better off without him. 

Betty sits to face him, to talk about the Blue and Gold and cheerleading and all the little Riverdale things that make up their lives ( _her life now, he reminds himself_ ) but before the puzzled disinterest can show Betty reaches up and touches her shoulder gingerly, her face stilling in momentary pain. 

“Everything good?” he ask automatically because he doesn't even mean to, he just strives for a world where she isn't ever going to make a face like that again and mean it. 

“Just sore,” she sighs, and his hands reach out reassuringly to rub the kinks from her muscles- this is not a new song and dance and while he has always enjoyed the scent of her hair, the surprising firmness of her back, the way she rolls her neck, arches into his touch and lets out a moan is _different_ and he is immediately hard, shifting a little in place on her pink little bed spread because this has to be an _accident,_ Betty warm in his hands ( _but she had been warm in his hands and willing and present but he had pulled back let the shadow of his past seduce him from this wonder and he doesn't deserve her_ ) and making soft noises; one strap of the camisole slips and she turns in his hands, slick with sudden sweat and nerves, to face him and they are kissing, his hands still moving absently, back, shoulders, breasts- the silk so warm under him that he is not sure what is shirt and what is skin ( _no bra_ ) and she holds his eyes as she unzips him, slips a hand into his pants.

“ _B-Betty,_ ” he stutters, lost for words for once because this wasn't- he'd planned but this _wasn't-_ and she moves, not hesitant, no, and her confidence does it for him, he comes hard, in slicked hands, certain clever fingers, all over her duvet. He makes a little _uh uh_ sound after, maybe catching his breath, maybe letting it go and she kisses him once more, just once, firmly, and smiles and says _I have a lot of homework, actually. Want to maybe hang out this weekend?_

He says yes, of course he says yes.

Jughead isn't sure exactly, exactly what he's doing because fuck, when is he ever, really, and after everything with Archie ( _and let's just not think about it_ ) and his father and his mother and his sister and his _life_ but he thinks yeah, this is okay, I'm a lover and a fighter, I can be everything. So he goes to school and aces his classes- it's not hard to be tops at a school like Southside and his grades go up and up and up and _do you know, Mr. Jones, there are special scholarships for students in your position_ and he is seeing the motherfucking _light._ After school he wears the jacket, sometimes, if he needs to. When he says he can't make it, they nod sagely. Everybody knows about Betty Cooper. He starts thinking the Blue and Gold has a hell of a reach but he hears a little whisper from Porkchop about _Hal Cooper's daughter_ and figures fuck it, whatever, everything in Riverdale's a little bit incestuous. 

It's just the movies but he irons his dress shirt, wears it a little unbuttoned. He even thinks about ditching the hat but decides it's too much. He shines his shoes. He wears a fucking blazer. 

She looks amazing because she always looks amazing, it's just a part of her, she could be wearing an eye patch after scratching her cornea and the planes of her face still would shame any other passersby. He knows because he remembers ninth grade English Class and reading The Odyssey, even injured _she_ was still the face that would launch a thousand ships. 

Her dress is dark crushed material, like velvet. _Velour,_ she calls it. Modest, long sleeves. Moderate skirt. The back, he realizes, five minutes in, is open and laced; he plays with it during the opening sequence, stroking up and down her spine as she goes rigid and he is remembering himself, remembering this not so empty theater, remembering this girl in his arms loves him and he loves her more than a cheap grope in a sticky theater and he is being classy _goddammit_ when she traps his hand and slips it under her skirt so he can skim his fingers underneath and she is _not wearing anything underneath._ Then he has her by the wrist, dragging her up and out and _fuck_ , the popcorn, but he doesn't even care. In the truck cab, in the parking lot of the Bijou, she takes him into her mouth and he laces buttery fingers into her hair and he can't tell because he's never done this before but probably this is the best feeling in the world. Her hands dig into his thighs for balance until they might leave a bruise- there's a hitch in her breathing and he sweeps her hair back to look into her eyes and finishes and she swallows him down ( _bitter, messy_ ). She says she was saving the dress. She says the underwear shows through velour. He doesn't know if she's really this naive or if he might be losing his fucking mind. 

It's inevitable and it's stupid, shockingly surprisingly stupid and petty these things are, these big gang bangers, like Roy doesn't have two kids at home and Butcher doesn't work two jobs to keep his mom in hospice care but some small, D.A.R.E. pledge ( _Archie Andrews_ ) part of him is expecting, yeah, they're gonna want drugs and violence, knocking over liquor stores and brawls with chains and knives like an S.E. Hinton book, which, to be fair, she made the fuck up anyway. They don't want him to do any of that- don't seem to do much of that themselves. Instead, when he wants to, when he can, he puts on his jacket and sits in a bar eating potato skins and chicken wings and watching these men ( _boys?_ ) slamming down enough drink to make this life look like a good one and then he drives them home to grateful wives, daughters, boyfriends, husbands. He's walking out of the bar, arm around Porkchop who is explaining exactly, _exactly_ the way a woman likes to be taken based strictly on her zodiac sign ( _Betty is a Gemini_ ) when he feels it before he sees it and sees it before he can react.

Betty Cooper drives by in her mother's car, on her way back to pick up Polly from whatever horror show crypt at the edge of town that Cheryl has been perching on since burning her nest to the ground. Their eyes meet. Her car disappears. He takes Porkchop back to Evelyn who thanks Jughead and gives him a bag of pizza flavored combos for the ride home and he can't even look at them. He gets a text that says _we need to talk_ and he wonders if this always will be what heartbreak tastes like for him now. 

_Meet me at FP's trailer,_ she texts him and he goes, knuckles white, hangs the jacket in the closet and sits on the couch to wait, head in hands, trembling. He smells like bar food and smoke, liquor and sweat, he smells like his father and _we're not them we're not our parents_ except yeah, maybe he is. 

Betty opens the door, steps inside, turns the lock. Drops her coat. 

Black lace and red lipstick, dark eyeliner and a cheap black wig and he is knocking the wig off, pulling hands through her hair as he presses her to the closed door, tearing at her clothes because he doesn't know if this is hello or goodbye, doesn't know if they're death do us part or if he's doomed them all but he wants her and he needs her and he needs her to need him too. He drops to his knees, puts his face at the juncture of her legs and she slams her head back, bends her knees a little into it as he mouths into her, wet and soft, and he rips the bit of lace there to shreds with both hands to clear the way. She is bare and he is bare, in every conceivable way and this is _good_ she is still Betty Cooper still _good_ underneath and he is still Jughead Jones and he is still _good_ underneath and they will be nothing but good together, their truest selves kindly sweet, lovingly brash.

Then. 

“Wear the jacket,” she whispers and he pulls back like it's the most obscene thing he's ever heard, recoiling, wide-eyed and vulnerable. His mouth falls open like he wants to speak but he can't, he's too _hard,_ and soon he is naked except for the jacket and she had thought it cold but she had never had it like this, warm and heavy friction against her chest and she is scrabbling at his back and the leather is an armor so she digs her nails in, scratches deep deep like her palms, cutting inside him but he is protected here he is safe with her and the Serpents and she will protect them whatever she does and she's whispering his name _Jug, Juggie_ and he is saying he loves her will always love her will kill and fight and destroy for her will move mountains will burn cities to the ground for her, always always _always._

When Jughead pulls up on the bike with a girl on the back, no one even blinks. She slides off and appraises them with bright blue eyes; smiles sweetly; pets Hotdog. She's already wearing her legacy, a jacket, relic from the attic. _Hal Cooper's daughter, Alice's daughter_ their eyes say.

_it's yours if you want it._

She wants it all.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sorry for staying up late **or** for the run on sentences, so... Also, Dark!Power Couple Bughead is my new aesthetic. Comments and kudos are appreciated, though. Better than caffeine!


End file.
